1,229 research outputs found
Dihydrobenz[e][1,4]oxazepin-2(3H)-ones, a new anthelmintic chemotype immobilising whipworm and reducing infectivity in vivo
Trichuris trichiura is a human parasitic whipworm infecting around 500 million people globally, damaging the physical growth and educational performance of those infected. Current drug treatment options are limited and lack efficacy against the worm, preventing an eradication programme. It is therefore important to develop new treatments for trichuriasis. Using Trichuris muris, an established model for T. trichiura, we screened a library of 480 novel drug-like small molecules for compounds causing paralysis of the ex vivo adult parasite. We identified a class of dihydrobenz[e][1,4]oxazepin-2(3H)-one compounds with anthelmintic activity against T. muris. Further screening of structurally related compounds and resynthesis of the most potent molecules led to the identification of 20 active dihydrobenzoxazepinones, a class of molecule not previously implicated in nematode control. The most active immobilise adult T. muris with EC50 values around 25â50ÎŒM, comparable to the existing anthelmintic levamisole. The best compounds from this chemotype show low cytotoxicity against murine gut epithelial cells, demonstrating selectivity for the parasite. Developing a novel oral pharmaceutical treatment for a neglected disease and deploying it via mass drug administration is challenging. Interestingly, the dihydrobenzoxazepinone OX02983 reduces the ability of embryonated T. muris eggs to establish infection in the mouse host in vivo. Complementing the potential development of dihydrobenzoxazepinones as an oral anthelmintic, this supports an alternative strategy of developing a therapeutic that acts in the environment, perhaps via a spray, to interrupt the parasite lifecycle. Together these results show that the dihydrobenzoxazepinones are a new class of anthelmintic, active against both egg and adult stages of Trichuris parasites. They demonstrate encouraging selectivity for the parasite, and importantly show considerable scope for further optimisation to improve potency and pharmacokinetic properties with the aim of developing a clinical agent
WFPC2 Observations of NGC 454: an Interacting Pair of Galaxies
We present WFPC2 images in the F450W, F606W and F814W filters of the
interacting pair of galaxies NGC 454. Our data indicate that the system is in
the early stages of interaction. A population of young star-clusters has formed
around the late component, and substantial amounts of gas have sunk into the
center of the earlier component, where it has not yet produced significant
visible star formation or nuclear activity. We have photometric evidence that
the star-clusters have strong line emission, which indicate the presence of a
substantial component of hot, massive stars which formed less than 5-10 Myrs
ago.Comment: 14 pages, 4 figures, Latex (AAS macros), ApJL in pres
On the embeddability of certain infinitely divisible probability measures on Lie groups
We describe certain sufficient conditions for an infinitely divisible
probability measure on a class of connected Lie groups to be embeddable in a
continuous one-parameter convolution semigroup of probability measures.
(Theorem 1.3). This enables us in particular to conclude the embeddability of
all infinitely divisible probability measures on certain Lie groups, including
the so called Walnut group (Corollary 1.5). The embeddability is concluded also
under certain other conditions (Corollary 1.4 and Theorem 1.6).Comment: 24 page
The star-forming content of the W3 giant molecular cloud
We have surveyed a ~0.9-square-degree area of the W3 giant molecular cloud
and star-forming region in the 850-micron continuum, using the SCUBA bolometer
array on the James Clerk Maxwell Telescope. A complete sample of 316 dense
clumps was detected with a mass range from around 13 to 2500 Msun. Part of the
W3 GMC is subject to an interaction with the HII region and fast stellar winds
generated by the nearby W4 OB association. We find that the fraction of total
gas mass in dense, 850-micron traced structures is significantly altered by
this interaction, being around 5% to 13% in the undisturbed cloud but ~25 - 37%
in the feedback-affected region. The mass distribution in the detected clump
sample depends somewhat on assumptions of dust temperature and is not a simple,
single power law but contains significant structure at intermediate masses.
This structure is likely to be due to crowding of sources near or below the
spatial resolution of the observations. There is little evidence of any
difference between the index of the high-mass end of the clump mass function in
the compressed region and in the unaffected cloud. The consequences of these
results are discussed in terms of current models of triggered star formation.Comment: 13 pages, 8 figures, 1 table (full source table available on
request). Accepted for publication in Monthly Notices of the Royal
Astronomical Society (Main Journal
Phase diagram and isotope effect in (PrEu)_0.7Ca_0.3CoO_3 cobaltites exhibiting spin-state transitions
We present the study of magnetization, thermal expansion, specific heat,
resistivity, and a.c. susceptibility of
(PrEu)CaCoO cobaltites. The measurements were
performed on ceramic samples with and . Based on these
results, we construct the phase diagram, including magnetic and spin-state
transitions. The transition from the low- to intermediate-spin state is
observed for the samples with , whereas for a lower Eu-doping level,
there are no spin-state transitions, but a crossover between the ferromagnetic
and paramagnetic states occurs. The effect of oxygen isotope substitution along
with Eu doping on the magnetic/spin state is discussed. The oxygen-isotope
substitution (O by O) is found to shift both the magnetic and
spin-state phase boundaries to lower Eu concentrations. The isotope effect on
the spin-state transition temperature () is rather strong, but it is
much weaker for the transition to a ferromagnetic state (). The
ferromagnetic ordering in the low-Eu doped samples is shown to be promoted by
the Co ions, which favor the formation of the intermediate-spin state of
neighboring Co ions.Comment: 13 pages, including 11 figures, to be published in Phys. Rev.
The Large-scale J=3-2 and J=2-1 CO Emission from M17 and its Implications for Extragalactic CO Observations
We observed a 10x20 pc region of the molecular cloud M17 in the 12CO and 13CO
J=3-2 and J=2-1 transitions to determine their global behavior and to assess
the reliability of using ratios of CO line intensities integrated over an
entire cloud to determine the physical conditions within the cloud. Both the
12CO/13CO J=2-1 and J=3-2 line ratios correlate with the 13CO integrated
intensity, with smaller line ratios observed at locations with large integrated
intensities. This correlation is likely due to variations in the column density
from one position to another within M17. The 12CO and 13CO (J=3-2/J=2-1) line
ratios show no significant variation from place to place within M17, even on
the peak of the photon-dominated region. A Large Velocity Gradient analysis of
globally averaged line ratios gives results in reasonable agreement with the
results obtained for individual lines-of-sight through the cloud, which
suggests that the typical physical conditions in a molecular cloud can be
determined using CO line ratios integrated over the entire cloud. There appears
to be a clear trend of increasing 12CO/13CO J=2-1 and J=3-2 line ratios as one
moves from Galactic molecular cloud cores to entire Galactic molecular clouds
to normal galaxies. The most likely explanation of the high line ratios for
normal galaxies is a significant contribution to the CO emission by low column
density material, such as diffuse molecular clouds or the outer envelopes of
giant molecular clouds.Comment: 26 pages, 6 figures, 2 tables. Accepted for publication in Ap
Narrow Na and K Absorption Lines Toward T Tauri Stars: Tracing the Atomic Envelope of Molecular Clouds
We present a detailed analysis of narrow Na i and K i absorption resonance lines toward nearly 40 T Tauri stars in Taurus with the goal of clarifying their origin. The Na i λ5889.95 line is detected toward all but one source, while the weaker K i λ7698.96 line is detected in about two-thirds of the sample. The similarity in their peak centroids and the significant positive correlation between their equivalent widths demonstrate that these transitions trace the same atomic gas. The absorption lines are present toward both disk and diskless young stellar objects, which excludes cold gas within the circumstellar disk as the absorbing material. A comparison of Na i and CO detections and peak centroids demonstrates that the atomic gas and molecular gas are not co-located, the atomic gas being more extended than the molecular gas. The width of the atomic lines corroborates this finding and points to atomic gas about an order of magnitude warmer than the molecular gas. The distribution of Na i radial velocities shows a clear spatial gradient along the length of the Taurus molecular cloud filaments. This suggests that absorption is associated with the Taurus molecular cloud. Assuming that the gradient is due to cloud rotation, the rotation of the atomic gas is consistent with differential galactic rotation, whereas the rotation of the molecular gas, although with the same rotation axis, is retrograde. Our analysis shows that narrow Na i and K i absorption resonance lines are useful tracers of the atomic envelope of molecular clouds. In line with recent findings from giant molecular clouds, our results demonstrate that the velocity fields of the atomic and molecular gas are misaligned. The angular momentum of a molecular cloud is not simply inherited from the rotating Galactic disk from which it formed but may be redistributed by cloudâcloud interactions
Interstellar Turbulence: II. Energy Spectra of Molecular Regions in the Outer Galaxy
The multivariate tool of Principal Component Analysis (PCA) is applied to 23
fields in the FCRAO CO Survey of the Outer Galaxy. PCA enables the
identification of line profile differences which are assumed to be generated
from fluctuations within a turbulent velocity field. The variation of these
velocity differences with spatial scale within a molecular region is described
by a singular power law, delta v= c L^alpha which can be used as a powerful
diagnostic to turbulent motions. For the ensemble of 23 fields, we find a mean
value alpha = 0.62 +- 0.11. From a recent calibration of this method using
fractal Brownian motion simulations (Brunt & Heyer 2001), the measured velocity
difference-size relationship corresponds to an energy spectrum, E(k), which
varies as k^-beta, where beta = 2.17 +- 0.31. We compare our results to both
decaying and forced hydrodynamic simulations of turbulence. We conclude that
energy must be continually injected into the regions to replenish that lost by
dissipative processes such as shocks. The absence of large, widely distributed
shocks within the targeted fields suggests that the energy is injected at
spatial scales less than several pc.Comment: 24 pages, 10 figures, accepted by Ap
The linewidth-size relationship in the dense ISM of the Central Molecular Zone
The linewidth (sigma) - size (R) relationship has been extensively measured
and analysed, in both the local ISM and in nearby normal galaxies. Generally, a
power-law describes the relationship well with an index ranging from 0.2-0.6,
now referred to as one of "Larson's Relationships." The nature of turbulence
and star formation is considered to be intimately related to these
relationships, so evaluating the sigma-R correlations in various environments
is important for developing a comprehensive understanding of the ISM. We
measure the sigma-R relationship in the Central Molecular Zone (CMZ) of the
Galactic Centre using spectral line observations of the high density tracers
N2H+, HCN, H13CN, and HCO+. We use dendrograms, which map the hierarchical
nature of the position-position-velocity (PPV) data, to compute sigma and R of
contiguous structures. The dispersions range from ~2-30 km/s in structures
spanning sizes 2-40 pc, respectively. By performing Bayesian inference, we show
that a power-law with exponent 0.3-1.1 can reasonably describe the sigma-R
trend. We demonstrate that the derived sigma-R relationship is independent of
the locations in the PPV dataset where sigma and R are measured. The uniformity
in the sigma-R relationship suggests turbulence in the CMZ is driven on the
large scales beyond >30 pc. We compare the CMZ sigma-R relationship to that
measured in the Galactic molecular cloud Perseus. The exponents between the two
systems are similar, suggestive of a connection between the turbulent
properties within a cloud to its ambient medium. Yet, the velocity dispersion
in the CMZ is systematically higher, resulting in a coefficient that is nearly
five times larger. The systematic enhancement of turbulent velocities may be
due to the combined effects of increased star formation activity, larger
densities, and higher pressures relative to the local ISM.Comment: 11 pages, 8 figures, Accepted for publication in MNRA
Pressure-induced quantum phase transition in Feââá”ȘCoá”ȘSi (x = 0.1,0.2)
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